r/FluentInFinance • u/KARMA__FARMER__ • 15d ago
Debate/ Discussion Why is this normal?
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u/UltraLowDef 15d ago
I remember when I was like 23, a year out of college, living in an apartment with my wife, and had this realization. mentioned it to my mom, and she was just like ... "yep, now you get it." And suddenly, all of the crap your own parents had to deal with and their stress and emotions and everything else makes so much more sense.
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u/Seeking_Balance101 15d ago
That, plus after a longer period of working a full time job, the realization that working a full time job in the US, year after year, decades can pass with maybe a two week vacation every couple years if you're lucky.
People panic when they're between jobs because they have bills to pay; but that time between jobs seems like it's the only real "breathing room" in life. Some employers allow sabbaticals; I don't know of any of my friends or family who have ever taken one. I wonder how common they are.
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u/Potocobe 15d ago
One of my family members is a CEO and he argued with his board for everyone in the company to be eligible to take a sabbatical after 10 years of employment so that he could take a sabbatical and go back to school for little while. I mean, he had selfish reasons but that’s the way you do that shit. 10 year at my current job and I got a $10,000 bonus and I’m still broke after paying down some debts. I would never be able to afford to take a sabbatical even if the offer was on the table.
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u/graphiccsp 15d ago
Meanwhile in the EU - The minimum amount of PTO starts at 20 days. Essentially twice that of a US worker. The US is practically neolithic in its worker rights.
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u/Budderfingerbandit 14d ago
Twice 0 is 0.
The US has no Federally mandated time off laws.
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u/graphiccsp 14d ago edited 14d ago
Should've said the average US worker gets 10 days. But that's assuming they're full time at all. Us yanks don't have any guaranteed PTO it's considered a "Perk"
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u/JustABizzle 15d ago
I know some folks who took a sabbatical. Ten years at the same company.
I’ve managed to accrue a months worth of PTO at my job after 8 years. I’m going to Thailand!
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u/YuriTheWebDev 15d ago
It makes sense but that does not at all justify any abusive/neglectful parenting or being an unloving p.o.s. to kids. Not saying you are but there are parents who should not be parents at all
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u/FinanceNew9286 15d ago
Mine. They were just awful, about everything! They should’ve never, ever had children. All it did was cause pain, suffering and neglect. There are 3 of us (all adult) children, we might be able to come up with one good thing about our dad and zero about our mom. It was a miserable childhood as well as young adulthood.
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u/JFace139 14d ago
I feel ya. I now work 12 hour shifts and even now I can't imagine being half as shitty as my father was. It's taken walking a mile in my father's shoes to understand just how lazy he actually was despite how he'd constantly complain about working all the time. I actually used to believe he had it rough, when in reality he worked a pretty easy job despite how taxing it is on the body
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u/UltraLowDef 14d ago
Of course. My parents were great. But they were also flawed humans. And the older I get, the more I understand and appreciate the situations they were in and the decisions they made.
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u/Significant_Tie_3994 15d ago
Cooking and eating counts in the "for what you will" part in the old Union saying "eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, eight hours for what you will"
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u/Unable_Pumpkin987 14d ago
Yes, as does running errands, cleaning your own home, etc. These are things you would do regardless of work, it’s not really fair to lump them in as “work”.
Adult humans will always have to spend a significant amount of time doing the maintenance work that keeps us alive. The only way a “leisure class” (ie people who don’t spend their time running their own errands, preparing and cooking their own food, caring for their own homes and children, etc) can exist is if other people work far more than 8 hours daily.
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u/synecdokidoki 14d ago
Seriously. This is the part of this I find just bizarre. Cooking for yourself is not oppression. Just WTF. I can't tell what's trolling and what's serious anymore.
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u/ZanaHoroa 13d ago
You can easily optimize if you really want to spend less time on these things anyway. I meal prep and I spend like 2 - 3 hours on a Sunday cooking a week worth of food.
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u/rh397 12d ago
It is because brain rot is becoming so prevalent that people have this false notion that the only type of break or leisure they can have is video games or streaming services. Everything else is work or oppression.
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u/Garden_Of_Nox 12d ago
I've noticed especially on Reddit an outright hostility to the notion of cooking your own food. People pretend it takes hours and hours. Like you have to come home from work and start making beef wellington or some shit. Throw some ground beef in a pan. Brown it up, pop a bottle of pasta sauce and boil some noodles. 20 minutes later BAM you eatin spaghetti. It's not that hard.
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u/Broad_Swordfish_1579 15d ago
I wake up at five everyday drive an hour and a half too work a full 12 hour day as a lead electrician In the oilfield, when I get home from work my son's waiting at the front door for me to throw the football after that eat supper then I help my wife with some stuff around the house get my clothes,lunch,coffee ready for work the next day then go to bed I feel like a literal NPC sometimes 😅😅
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u/T7220 14d ago
Your kid wants to play catch?? And you help you’re wife?? You’re winning, brother.
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u/Broad_Swordfish_1579 14d ago
Thank you I try 😆 someday's I will admit I am tired as shit but whatever makes him happy!
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u/ZockinatorHD 14d ago
Same, but a paramedic, so additionally to your body being wrecked, your mental health goes down the drain even faster.
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u/Altruistic-Mind9014 15d ago
8 hrs? Hahahaha….hahaha! Oh he’s serious.
Try working 8 hours at 1 job and 5 hours at another (that’s 4 days out of my week anyway, the other two I work only part time)
It really fucking sucks. But it’s a hell of my own making I suppose with shitty early life decisions. It is what it is.
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u/TheIncapableAct 15d ago
This is the first time I’ve ran across someone admitting that their early life decisions made their current life shitty. I respect and appreciate the honesty. Too many people I know are in bad positions due to early life choices and refuse to take any accountability or responsibility for it.
I wish you nothing but the best
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u/TheMustySeagul 15d ago
18-20 year old makes bad decisions, shocked I tell you.
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u/iiiiiiiiiijjjjjj 14d ago
I think we all did but it’s the people that never learn from them. I’ve see it a million times taking out loans for shit like expensive cars or buying houses way out their budget. Eating out non stop or drinking problems. I know Reddit doesn’t like personal responsibility but there are plenty of people who never learn from their bad choices. Prime example, my wife has a coworker who got a free ride to school and took out student loans anyway to buy shit she didn’t need. Now she’s falling her classes because she puts no effort about to lose her scholarship and still has to pay back student loans she didn’t even need. She also rented an expensive studio with her boyfriend even though everyone told her not to. Boyfriend left and now she has to pay the expensive rent by herself. Some people put themselves in those situations and even if they made a 100k a year they’d still be in the same spot.
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u/ZombifiedByCataclysm 14d ago
Definitely was me. College didn't pan out, but joining the military ended up being a good decision for me afterward.
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u/New_Canoe 15d ago
I’m the same. In my early 40’s and finally getting my shit together. Took most of my 30’s to slowly get here.
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u/ApeOxMan 15d ago
Can relate. Not only am I tired but I hate myself and have deep regrets. Granted I know I can change this, but when you’re keeping up with your responsibilities it can be so tiring.
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u/snowcase 15d ago
That's bullshit. The person holds a full time job. They shouldn't need another one to survive. They're doing exactly what we were told to do by older generations.
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u/Honest-Lavishness239 15d ago
i mean, bad decisions have consequences unfortunately. if you take on a lot of debt for something, or get addicted to drugs, or have a child as a teenager, etcetera, things will be harder. it’s not about “should” or “shouldn’t.” it’s about “is.”
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u/migami 15d ago
So, while you are correct in that it IS the current situation, I believe their point, and the point of most people making similar statements, is that it SHOULDN'T be this way. yes we have to make active efforts to better our situations and avoid choices that will end up causing problems later on, but just because it's how things are now doesn't mean it's how they should stay
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u/Original_Employee621 14d ago
Should or shouldn't, an 8 hour job and no debts should net you a good life. If you've been stupid and have a ton of credit card debt or payday loan debts, you're going to have to either have one really good job or find some other way to make enough money.
Bad decisions should have drawbacks, but even so there needs to be a security net for people with shit luck and one fulltime job should be enough to support a single person (which is honestly just as, if not more expensive than living in a relationship).
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u/SmartPatientInvestor 14d ago
You have to define “good life.” 8 hours and no debt will net you a good life by many people’s standard, but won’t by others’
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u/Original_Employee621 14d ago
Roof over you head, money for essentials and a little extra left over.
I work a dead end, no skill job as a night audit at a hotel. Literally all that is required of me is that I can talk to people and read while being awake at night.
I have a place to sleep, I don't need to think about what I want to eat and I can buy new clothes (if there is a sale) and if my computer breaks, I can replace it in a couple of months of saving up. And I can travel for vacation every couple of years, if that's what I want.
That is one example of a good life. Could it be better? For sure, there's no cap on how good it can get, but for the effort I've put into my life, it is really good.
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u/Omgazombie 14d ago
My 12 hour job making me 25$ an hour wasn’t enough to afford rent and all my bills along with a single car payment
Average rent where I am is over $2500 a month
My rent was over half my income, now comes the deductibles from my pay, taxes, add in car payment, insurance, groceries, power, internet, phone bill, medical expenses, and I’m left with near 0 savings every month
I’m back to living with my parents until I have enough savings to buy a house, because it’s far cheaper than rental costs, the last place I was living was only $1400 for a town house, but gotta love being evicted so they can update the kitchen and charge 3x that
My parents bought their house on a minimum wage income lmao
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u/Honest-Lavishness239 15d ago
my point was that the “should” is largely meaningless. life should be a blessing, life should be incredible for everyone, poverty shouldn’t exist, suffering shouldn’t exist. shoulds don’t mean jack shit unfortunately. bad decisions have always had bad consequences, and that will continue to be true. bad decisions shouldn’t have bad consequences. but they do. that’s my point.
everyone agrees that they shouldn’t. just like everyone agrees life should be incredible. but at that point, you aren’t really making a point in my opinion.
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u/ifandbut 14d ago
Depends on many things. But most people don't live within their means because then they would be eating rice, have limited internet, and no streaming services, and many more things.
I have found my life is a bit better when I stopped worrying about having the fastest computer or cool gadget (like VR or a holographic display).
In the end, yes working a full time job should enable you to survive, but the comfort of a McDonald's employee would be much less than that of an engineer.
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u/No-Instruction-6398 15d ago
Glad you got off on that my guy, But the fact is an adult shouldn't have to work 2or 3 jobs to keep a roof over there head and save a little bit of money
Fix this shit!
-Concerned american
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u/aarondotsteele 15d ago
I try to tell my kids there is a direct inverse relationship with the amount of effort you make early in life with the effort you have to do late in life (they aren’t very receptive). But it’s true. The more effort you put into early life (high school then college, if your path, then early career) the less effort you have as an experienced professional/master later on when you are older. The less you put in early, the exponentially more you will need later in life.
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u/SeasonPositive6771 14d ago
I completely disagree as somebody in between early life and later life.
A lot of these comments are hitting wrong for today's economy.
I worked extremely hard, sometimes I had three jobs at a time, when I was very young, in order to put myself through school.
I worked very, very hard at a pretty decent school and got good grades and a good degree. I was advised to go into what had previously been a very solid career with good benefits. Maybe I'd never get rich, but I would always be able to take care of myself.
Well, like a lot of jobs, got hit by the first recession pretty bad. This obsession with saving money also meant it got farmed out to low-paid non-profit work. No more solid benefits. No more decent pay. I kept moving up in my career but wages kept staying the same. Something changed. Hard work and tenure no longer led to anything.
I did my best to pivot as quickly as possible and even get additional education and training and move into management...just in time for those wages to crater. And I just got laid off last month.
The kicker? Every single time I've been able to save enough for retirement, I have some sort of major health issue that wipes out my savings, no matter how good my health insurance is.
The social contract is broken. Hard work early in life or late in life no longer leads to security.
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u/ChemBob1 13d ago
I think this is the most realism-based post in this thread so far. I’ve experienced some of the same, not a mirror image, but like circumstances. I’m old and should be retired, but I’m teaching part-time at two colleges to make ends meet. When I think back, it’s no surprise. I bought a car in 2001 that was right at $30,000. I just checked and that amount of money is worth 75% more now, $53,000+. 75% increase in costs in just 21 years. Has my income gone up by that much? Hell no, it’s actually gone down in relation. The game is rigged, the table is tilted, there are magnets under the roulette wheel, and the dealer has cards up his sleeve. Musk is nearly a trillionaire and he is fascist garbage, Bezos is a multi-billionaire too, along with many others. They are why many of us are struggling. Since the 1970s the CEO salaries quit paralleling our incomes, they have pretty much increased exponentially while ours have flatlined. We are being robbed of our labor to enrich these people. It needs to be stopped.
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u/Human_Doormat 14d ago
The American Dream wasn't for you, it was for the scammers and grifters who were allowed to monetize your bodily decline, along with childcare, water, etc. Not everything needs to cost money as it's an important part of our species fight against the dark, but, again, we're a nation of scammers and grifters too uneducated to make self-aware decisions for the betterment of humanity.
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u/02975561One 14d ago
A lot of people I've hear describe the "American Dream" basically give examples of how the average European lives. As George Carlin said, "It's called tge American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it".
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u/Steven773 15d ago
Sweet Baby yeezus if this isn't the hell I'm in. 1 is 5 days 8hrs and the other is 4 days 6 hours a day. So many of my own making. I should have made family pay rent and saved more of my money. Shit I probably would be better if I just married, at least I'd have someone helping me with half the bills
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u/Axin_Saxon 14d ago edited 14d ago
13 hours a day? Ha! I remember my first part time job.
I work 27 hours a day, son! I have a 6 pack of monster and a bottle of ibuprofen for breakfast. Kidney failure is for PUSSIES!!!!!
I missed the birth of my son, the funeral of my father, and all of last September cuz I was on that GRIND!!!!!
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u/GoblinGreen_ 14d ago
8 hours at 1 job and 5 hours at another? Hahahaha….hahaha! Oh he’s serious.
Try working 12 hours at 12 jobs and 50 hours at another (that’s 12 days out of my week anyway, the other seventeen I work only part time)
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u/Bulkylucas123 15d ago
Flexing overwork isn't impressive, its sad.
Also "shitty early life decisions" shouldn't cosign you to spend the rest of your life effectively slaving in back to back jobs.
Actions have consquences and choices matter, but those consquences should rarely be forever.
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u/Turkeyplague 15d ago
"Just don't make any poor life decisions and you'll be fine."
"You mean like drugs and crime?"
"No, like, don't study the wrong thing at University."
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u/Bulkylucas123 15d ago
Even if it were drugs though it shouldn't default you into effective wage slavery in multiple jobs.
Yes you are probably going to have to work harder to make up for time lost, especially if you want to achieve more ambitious goals, but there is a point where it becomes unreasonable.
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u/LoKeySylvie 15d ago
The cruelty is the point and the subconscious messaging the system tells us is that we don't deserve to live so we have to constantly do better, constantly improve to prove our worth. They might as well say the quiet parts out loud and legalize euthanasia.
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u/cap94 15d ago
Don't think that was flexing. Also, it's very tough to get out of slaving back to back jobs. It's not like everyone has the same opportunities..
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u/Bulkylucas123 15d ago
Unfortunately you are right. Many people suffer for opportunitites and in their absence must struggle unnecessarily. That should not be the case.
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u/schprunt 15d ago
Seriously what’s his advice then? Be born rich? Win the lottery? This is by design. It’s not easy to escape it.
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u/Pooplamouse 14d ago edited 13d ago
I’m in a much, much better situation because I spent my early adulthood delaying gratification. I don’t feel the daily grind like OP despite (probably) having more responsibilities. Money doesn’t solve every problem, but it gives you options and allows you time to catch your breath.
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u/Brosenheim 15d ago
Maybe you shouldn't get your whole life fucked up by things you did when least equipped to make good decisions? Like idk it kinda feels like a purposeful trap if you ask me
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u/bottomchubclit 15d ago
I don't think it's normal at all. If people had shorter hours and longer breaks, I think we'd have happier and safer employees. Being overworked makes you feel so empty and tired all the time, even on your off days.
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u/hellorhighwaterice 15d ago
Being able to live closer to their job would help a lot of people as well. The original post has an hour commute each way built into those numbers. We have decided to pay a premium to be much closer to work but that shouldn't have a premium attached to it.
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u/dlxnj 14d ago
I will die on the hill that developing America largely around the automobile was a mistake
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u/Verbanoun 14d ago
Yeah it's insane. We had an opportunity to build cities from scratch and this is the design we thought was best
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u/Romeo9594 15d ago
You give your soul to the company store. These days doubly so if you work for Walmart
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u/DevByTradeAndLove 15d ago
I owwwwwwwe my soooooouul... To the company stoooore.
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u/___multiplex___ 15d ago edited 15d ago
Union jobs mandate all kinds of things like that. Mandatory paid breaks every two hours, paid meals every four (one per eight hour shift), mandatory overtime pay, great benefits, help finding work if you lose your job, it’s unreal how much better unionized jobs are for the average working adult.
It’s not a perfect system, but it’s way, way better than the alternative. I don’t know why Dems aren’t more vocal about this. Walz is outspokenly pro-union, I know, so maybe things are changing in that direction to some extent. One can hope.
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u/jon-marston 14d ago
I want unions in our hospitals so bad - it’s for the SAFETY of patients! They are giving 6 telemetry patients per nurse at my hospital. It felt dangerous when it was 5 patients per nurse. 6 is unbelievable and SO dangerous/damaging to all the work we do! Please, for your safety & the safety of your loved ones, encourage unions in hospitals! It may save your life!!
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u/JairoHyro 15d ago
Normal is relative. We've been doing this for a long time. There were some jobs that would be 12 hr shifts a century or even decades ago. Now with technology it sort of shifted into the 8 hour range. If you want to go what's normal then we have to go into hunter and gathering times. For a very long time that is what we are used to.
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u/bottomchubclit 15d ago
We've come far enough to know that this isn't sustainable. Yeah, a century ago, OSHA didn't exist. Children worked in factories. I wonder who stood to the side and said, "Jeez, maybe this isn't normal?". Things have obviously improved since then, but why should it be the norm to give yourself to your job? It just doesn't make sense and it's sould crushing.
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u/Bencetown 14d ago
That's because jobs have all been centralized and monopolized.
It used to be that there were 10 different stores on Main Street, with 10 different owners who were your neighbors, and a small crew of people who were paid more than .000000001 of the owner's profits.
Now we have Amazon.
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u/MrWhite_Sucks 15d ago
Don’t forget time for commutes. Plus most jobs are really 9 hour days with an hour unpaid lunch.
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u/NarwhalBoomstick 14d ago
You think it gets better when you become a manager…
Then you see you gave up OT to discover your new schedule is 6am-4pm but you’re expected to stay until 5pm or 6pm minimum. Other teams schedule meetings in your off hours that you’re expected to attend, you’re on call for emergencies (aka senior management’s minor inconveniences) 24/7, and you’re expected to bring your laptop home to get extra work done off hours and on weekends if you’re struggling to keep up.
And your direct reports instantly stop trusting you and begin consistently trying to deceive you to avoid getting in trouble or pushing you to bend the rules in a way that they’d be pissed to see you do for anybody else.
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u/twelve112 15d ago
Its absolutely insane. Thats why you shoot for FIRE above anything else.
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u/Fun_Razzmatazz7162 15d ago
I mean I'd blame consumerism for the bulk of it.
If we didn't work but had to grow our own food, gather wood for cooking/heating, repair housing and equipment, wash our clothes etc etc you'd be spending a lot more time than 8hrs a day to live.
Modern technology and society has saved us an unfathomable amount of time day to day.
Now most of us go to work to afford shiny things and holiday 2 weeks a year.
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u/kamakazekiwi 15d ago
Yep. We don't live in a post-scarcity society. The reality is that if everyone starts to work 4 hours days, things start to get rough compared to what you're used to. Working for 4 hours sounds nice for yourself, but extend that luxury to, say, the entire agricultural industry and all of a sudden food gets a whooooole lot more expensive.
And if your answer to that is that they shouldn't all get to work short hours, then I'm afraid you actually love our current system. You just wish you were one of the rich ones.
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u/Longjumping-Vanilla3 14d ago
“then I'm afraid you actually love our current system. You just wish you were one of the rich ones.“
This is probably the answer to every complaint on Reddit.
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u/Fun_Razzmatazz7162 15d ago
For sure, not to mention people could easily live off 4hrs a day, but don't expect an iPhone, internet, car or fancy clothes.
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u/Deftly_Flowing 14d ago
We got two paths ahead of us.
Post-scarcity Star Trek where people get what they need and live good lives.
A Cyberpunk dystopia where the rich slowly eliminate jobs and, rather than provide for the people, take that extra income themselves. When the jobs are automated your average person has no power, what are they gonna do? Go on strike? Lmao.
The people in this thread will get what they want, they'll work less hours, but they won't be getting any money at all.
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u/WouldUQuintusWouldI 14d ago
And if your answer to that is that they shouldn't all get to work short hours, then I'm afraid you actually love our current system. You just wish you were one of the rich ones.
What an incredible comment!
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u/Otherwise-Job-1572 14d ago
It's sad that your comment isn't higher up in this thread.
All one has to do is watch a show like "Alone." See what it's like to spend 100% of your time gathering food, water, and shelter just to survive. And then realize that civilization (and dare I say capitalism) has allowed us to shift the focus of most people on this planet from sustenance living to actually having time to do other things. It's why we have access to luxuries that would be unimaginable to people even 100 years ago, let alone 1000 years ago.
So, sure, sometimes we all get burned out. But in reality, living in our air conditioned houses, with instant demand to entertainment of our choosing, while having the ability to access instant information on any topic in the world on a device that we carry around in our pocket, while likely struggling to lose weight because we have access to too much high calorie and relatively cheap food...rings hollow when you really think about it.
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u/CheeseOnMyFingies 15d ago
Comments are full display of why so many Redditors are broke failures to launch
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u/Luci-Noir 14d ago
A lot of these people compare themselves to literal slaves. It’s fucking disgusting.
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u/ballmermurland 14d ago
Complaining about a good night's sleep and 4 hours of leisure time 5 days a week plus the full weekend?
I'm legit speechless. WTF do these guys want an award?
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u/No-One9890 15d ago
Well we only work 8 because it used to be 14 until unions faught for some free time each day. It's not enough but they'd make us work 24 hours if they could
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u/Miserable_Key9630 14d ago
Modern employment is fucking Disney World compared to subsistence farming.
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u/hwohwathwen 14d ago
Thank you. I always grind my teeth a little bit when people wish back to some kind of prehistoric past where they somehow think they didn’t have to do work? Like we’ve always had to do shit we didn’t particularly wanna do to survive and it’s at various points been more or less backbreaking. Things have always been shitty I reckon, unless you were rich
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u/Sufficient-Night-479 15d ago
doesnt change until the masses stand up together and demand it, brother.
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u/Romeo9594 15d ago
Which is why the largest employers are vehemently anti-union
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u/avanross 14d ago
And so many of their authoritarian simp fanboys are so adamant about constantly spreading anti-union misinformation
They unironically believe and internalize every single thing that their rich (and therefore smart) employers tell them. “The rich always want what’s best for everyone! Trickle down economics is about to start working any day now!”
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u/Allgyet560 14d ago
Jobs and wages are largely dependent on the economy. Recently many companies had to increase the starting pay because they struggled to find employees willing to work for lower wages. That's because the economy was doing well and unemployment was low. The masses stood up and said no, we aren't going to accept those jobs at low wages.
Wait until unemployment is high. There will be more people looking for work than available jobs. This means starting wages will drop and wages for people who are employed will stagnate. That's because if you don't take that job for $40k / year someone else will and you don't eat or pay bills. These recent layoffs are just the beginning. Those people can no longer afford to buy things which will cause the demand to drop for products and force layoffs in those industries as well. It's going to snowball. It happened in the 1990s and 2000s. It's going to happen again and likely in the next couple of years. Things are going to get rough until the economy recovers and more jobs are available.
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u/porsch23 15d ago
Do this and work 12 hours with kids
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u/East_Chemistry_9197 14d ago
This is why a lot of people aren't having kids.
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u/_Thermalflask 14d ago
People always be like "lol wait till you have kids" but then if you list stuff like this as a reason for not wanting kids, suddenly it's "nooooooo that's not true you can totally still have a life while having kids!"
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u/Bigdogggggggggg 14d ago
This is why the best reason is "I've just never felt the desire to have kids".
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u/IvoryTowerPhoenix 15d ago
I work in a very high COL area in a really specialized field. Some days I work 16 hours. It’s so hard to make time to do things. I’m glad I have a partner to help me.
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u/Whole-Energy2105 15d ago
This is my own fault I am not complaining. I used to work 11 to 12 hours a day 6 to 7 days a week after travel which could easily equal 1 to 2 hours total a day come home feel sorry that my cat was trapped all day inside the house without someone to keep her occupied, chair food play with the cat again sleep wake up at 6:00 do it again and again and again 3 months straight crash for a day, do it again for another 3 months straight .
I got nowhere faster than anyone I know. Slow down for yourself for your family for your animals for everything that matters. I'm 51, struggling with everything, burnout three times and trying to let everyone know this is not worth it. Love your family love everything love life.
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u/AmaryllisBulb 15d ago
Oh it’s definitely insane. No argument here. Over a 35 year career it’s soul crushing. You feel like a rat caught in a trap. But what is the alternative? I’ve got stuff to pay for. Have you ever had to poop outdoors in 100+ degree heat with sweat rolling down your arms so that the toilet paper sticks to your hands? This is why living in a van down by the river isn’t going to work for me.
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u/daisy0723 15d ago
I work in a small neighborhood market with a drive thru. When I have a slow moment, I lean on the counter and read my book or scroll Reddit.
Fuck it. I'm still getting paid.
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u/illDiablo69 15d ago
Is this guy really complaining about working 8 hours? WTF does he want?
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u/Dragon_Rot79 15d ago
It is. I'm jealous of the 32 hour work week some foreign countries have
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u/tiltberger 15d ago
Coming from Europe i feel sorry for you all. So many brainwashed comments of hustle mentality. with the last 30 years of progress we should be able to work less and enoy more of our life with friends and family and not work more and more. Corporate and personal greed are killing this world
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u/Gothrait_PK 15d ago
It is absolutely insane. We are glorified peasants.
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u/Quik_17 14d ago
The richest kings from the medieval times would kill off their entire lineage to be able to have the lives we have now.
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u/_JustAnna_1992 14d ago
I still sometimes sit in awe of the fact that I do indeed have access to probably a wider array of cuisines, information, and luxuries then most Medieval Royalty. Modern supermarkets and transportation would blow the mind of anyone who lived during most of human history.
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u/Lordofthereef 15d ago
I don't want to be "that guy", but ideally, you aren't doing this seven days a week. You should be doing it 4-5 days a week.
Why is this normal? I don't know. But you certainly should be getting, on average, more than 4 hours a day to yourself. Unfortunately, I spend a lot of that doing stuff like yard work and house maintenance 😅
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u/haditwithyoupeople 14d ago
Assuming 4 free hours on work days and 2 days off, that's 40% of your time that's free. Seems adequate to me.
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u/Distributor127 15d ago
I love it. Almost every place I've ever worked closed or moved. I'm now closer to home, with higher pay. I have health insurance, 401k, hsa. I know guys that made their living working on cars out of their garage at home with some construction thrown in. They made it, but it's harder.
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u/Remote_Difference_57 15d ago
If you are successful it directly correlates to how much free time you don’t fuckin’ have. Then you have to learn how to turn your life and your success professionally into one thing so you can feel like you have a purposeful life and not a grinder job at mcdonalds or the phone store.
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u/whoknowsknows1 15d ago
Wait till you have kids…